Focus Home Interactive Reveals Their Plans for 2019

By Rebecca Smith,

Focus Home Interactive's annual "What's Next" event took place in Paris this week, and over the two days of the event, the publisher revealed everything they have planned for 2019 and beyond. One of these results was to announce all of the studios with whom they'll be collaborating on a variety of titles, and these studios include Dontnod Entertainment, Saber Interactive, Sumo Digital, and Games Workshop.

Beginning with the top row, the publisher has renewed their partnership with DONTNOD Entertainment, the developer of Vampyr. That title has sold over one million copies since its release last year, and their new project aims to be even bigger. Focus Home Interactive's COO John Bert calls the upcoming title "the most ambitious in the history of FOCUS and DONTNOD".

Next to them is the first of the new collaborations. Limestone Games is an Estonian developer that recently joined the publisher's fold. In terms of new studios, also in the top row is Sumo Digital, the team who created EVE: Valkyrie. They will be creating a "multiplayer experience without compromise in a universe as dark as it is violent". Then there is Paris-based studio Lightbulb Crew, who specialise in the tactical genre.

Saber Interactive has collaborated with Focus Home on MudRunner, and as well as the upcoming MudRunner 2 and World War Z, they now have two new games in the works with the publisher. One of them will be a "never-before-seen triple-A experience" based within Games Workshop's Warhammer 40,000 franchise, while the other is a co-op game from a brand new IP. The studio will also be porting some of the publisher's existing titles to Nintendo Switch and mobile.

Finishing the top row is Deck13. As well as the upcoming The Surge 2, the studio is also developing a "brand-new franchise", which suggests the studio may have signed up for a multi-game partnership.

Moving on to the bottom row, Asobo Studio will be bringing A Plague Tale: Innocence to consoles on May 14th. Their partnership will continue once that game has been released, although Focus Home didn't elaborate on any future plans the studio may have.

Other returning studios in the bottom row are Passtech Games, who is developing a new indie IP, and Streum On Studio, who is another studio who will be working on a Games Workshop IP, this time for a shooter experience. The final studio to be working on a Games Workshop property is new signup Gasket Games, a Vancouver-based studio that has team members that have previously worked at Relic Entertainment (Dawn of War) and Blackbird Interactive (Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak). They will likely be making a strategy title.

The final window in the image is a licence agreement rather than a developer collaboration. For the next ten years, the publisher will have exclusive rights to Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu franchise, although it remains to be seen whether it will be CYANIDE who continues to develop that one.

As well as all of the above titles, Focus Home will be publishing Spiders' GreedFall later this year too. As soon as we hear any more information on any of the above titles, we'll be sure to let you know.

Industry News

Written by Rebecca Smith

Rebecca is the Newshound Manager at TrueGaming Network. She has been contributing articles since 2010, especially those that involve intimidatingly long lists. When not writing news, she works in an independent game shop so that she can spend all day talking about games too. She'll occasionally go outside.